Hey, sorry I’ve dropped off the radar for the past few days. It just occurred to me that, based on the last two posts, my absence might have been cause for some concern with regards to my disappearance. I’ve just been dealing with some family things and technical difficulties. It takes a little while to transfer over 1.5 TB of stuff from one hard drive to another without burning out my laptop. Anyway, that’s all sorted now, and I’m looking forward to getting back to writing tomorrow morning.

In case you were also wondering, the novel sort of began stalling last week as well (for similar reasons). I’ve decided to write off this post-Super Bowl stretch as time served, and get back to normal on Monday. I hope everyone liked The Midnight Hour, and is looking forward to reading other things I wrote a newly-minted adult ago. I’m also going to go through some of my old MySpace blogs, and put up some of the best snippets. I also get to put my suit on, and go pound the pavement looking for something to pass the time (and yet still pay me). Still not sure if I want to jump right back into Restaurant Management, and all the high-level stress which it offers. The money’s decent, and I can do the job, but the life of a register monkey is still highly appealing. I don’t know… I’ve still got to pay off my credit cards. I guess I can talk to some of my connections in the industry and see if they’ve heard of any openings (while I’m waiting to hear back from some of the places where I’ve sent in my resumé.

What else?

I’ll probably do a review of this comic book series that I’ve been reading for quite some time, and maybe share my opinions about Birdman. I don’t know. I guess we’ll sort of just have to wait and see where the week takes us.

Anyway, I’m getting pretty sleepy, and my legs are killing me, so I’m going to wish you all a good night, and see you in the morning!

-Tex

So, first things first: I did my 1,000 words on the novel yesterday, and it went okay. I know the general story that I’m trying to get after, but the process will reveal the details, and I can go back and edit it to make it look like it was all on purpose. It kind of took me to a dark place, though. I mean, it made sense within the context that I’m setting up, but I didn’t expect it to go where it wound up. I may have to wuss out, and use a time jump to just narrate the details afterward, as I don’t know if I want go where it is heading. It’s not unreasonable, considering the characters, but it looks like I may have started writing a literary telenovela. If I do this right, I can set up a demonstration of my protagonist’s strength, but if I screw it up, I’ll have to just wipe it all away and try something different. I guess I’ll just have to do it right, then.

So I was thinking back to a graphic novel that I almost wrote about a decade and a half ago: Dr. Death and the Guardian Angel. It was my attempt to put the dangers of the world of methamphetamine abuse into a more palatable context. The insanity and warped storylines were already built in, and the characters I fleshed out were basically caricatures of the people I knew who were living this type of life. Of course, I shelved this idea, along with countless others when faced with the great purge of 2000. And now, the world has taken on a decidedly more boring tone, as the people with whom I currently associate are more likely to throw a fit about watching T.V. than steal a T.V. to score speed. But I really liked the character in the project who was standing in for me.

While everyone else in the story was running around fighting crime with abilities based upon puns about drug usage, the guy who I was writing to be me, was the only non-powered hero or villain in the tale. Didn’t stop him from participating in the action, though. He would run around with his split-personality girlfriend and attack the bad guys with a multi-tool. It was basically what would happen if Batman was a poor kid. Where does he get such mediocre toys? I launched myself into the mythology, and spent weeks writing the histories of this alternate reality while I was looking for someone who could draw. It would have been interesting to see what would have happened if I’d ever found an illustrator. Moving on…

It looks like today is going to be laundry day. Half my room is filled with garbage bags of dirty clothes, and my wife is off tomorrow, so I figure that we’ll get the first mountain in the range done today, and save the rest for Thursday. I would have gone and done a little at time over the past couple weeks, but my wife seems to forget that I don’t carry cash since I left my job, and if she wants me to get it done, she should probably leave me at least a roll of quarters. We’re going to slowly unbury ourselves from beneath the things which we’ve collected over the past nine years of life together. It’s amazing how much crap two full grown adults and a kid can manage to acquire in so short a time. I’m not saying that I haven’t contributed, but most of my purchases over the past three years have been digital in nature.

Since she’s been working mornings, and I’ve been here all day, she’s come to notice that the three of us don’t all fit in the room at the same time. We’d managed it without much incident during the years we barely saw one another, but now we’re practically falling all over each other, trying to figure out where everyone is supposed to go. It’s almost like a brief glimpse into how it will be in x amount of years when neither of us is working. I suppose it’s time to think about a second honeymoon, except that we never got to take the first one, so maybe we should try that first. I’m not usually one to advocate for practical, premeditated acts of romance, but our time apart has seeped into every aspect of our lives, and sometimes it feels like we’re just roommates with a kid in common.

By the time that we got married, David was almost three years old, and her daughter had just moved in with us. In the six years we’ve been a married couple, we’ve only spent two nights away from our dear children. The first was when me moved into our current apartment, and the last was three years ago, when we were coming back from the Whiskies of the World Expo in San Francisco. We’ve been so busy trying to make everything hang together, treating our union like some sort of business arrangement. I worked the day shifts, and my wife was working nights. On my days off, I tried to catch up on my sleep, and on her days off, I still never saw her. We arranged our time so that someone might always be there for our son, and slowly began to drift apart.

We have an opportunity to reconnect, and I don’t intend to waste it. I still love her more with every day, and despite the arguments, I feel like there is still a connection between us, something that we can build upon. I love my wife. I love my son. I have the family that I’ve always wanted. And now, at least for a little while more, the time to stop and enjoy them. Maybe before I burn through the last of my credit cards, I’ll take her out for dinner and a movie and check out the least horrible motel we come across. Nothing puts the spice back into a marriage like a conscious choice to leave the black light at home and take a chance.

-Tex

I left my job at the end of November so that I could spend time with my family in Washington and try to get some writing done. I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation, and have been averaging 1,000 words a day, but I still haven’t managed to accomplish anything. Last month alone, I wrote just over 32,000 words, and I’m no closer to finishing the book I set out to write than I was before I quit, or at any point over the last 15 years. This blog has been a wonderful exercise in the craft, but I’m still waiting on the words to get me started on the thing I feel I have to say. When I was going full steam before, I could lose myself in the process, and be done with a story in an evening. Heck, when I was in the 8th grade, I started writing a fantasy novel, and got something like fifteen chapters in before even I had to admit that it was just a parade of cliches. I didn’t stop because I ran out of story, though. I just realized that the story that I’d been telling had been told too many times to take a chance on. And now I’m sitting on this thing which is good, and topical, and has the potential to actually mean something, and I’m sitting here trying to figure out how to talk about the weather because I don’t know how to get started.

And because I’ve waited so long to even come to terms with that, the time has come for me to look for ways to try and bring in income, and it’s tempting to fall back into the Bi-Polar self-ridicule, and allow myself to believe that maybe this just isn’t the life for me. Maybe the best that I can hope for in my life is to run a restaurant. I know that’s just the depression talking, and that even though it’s just a chemical imbalance in brain that it can feel physically overwhelming. That’s why I’m trying to move this column along at a fair clip, and keep it balanced by a heavy dose of sarcasm and snark. I’ve got countless incidents of anecdotal evidence as to why I should give up, and just let myself become a normal guy, but I’m terrified to think that if I let myself become him, that I’ll have to reevaluate the parameters of my ego, and that’s not something that I’m willing to accept. I’ve got a track record of having usually being right (and even the times I’ve gotten it wrong have most often led to situations which eventually proved the initial point), and who am I to argue with myself? If I’m forced to draw a line in the sand somewhere within my mind, I don’t know where that will wind up leaving me. And if I have to divorce my dreams from my expectations, I don’t know who will get to keep my stuff, and which friends will decide they like me better.

This is the last obstacle to overcome. I know that I can write. I’ve actually learned how to do something that I’ve never been able to do before, and that is to get started without a muse. Some of my better pieces in The Vaults have been slow starters. Things I wrote, not because I especially felt like they needed saying, but because I told myself that I needed to do this everyday (with a handful of days off each month), or what was the point in giving up my job? It probably has just come down to mindset. The Book is still up on a pedestal, too important to get wrong, whereas I probably won’t be garnering much praise for this blog, regardless of how awesome I can make it. I hate it when I make a point to myself, and hide it in the past…

A few days ago, I was discussing the banality of evil, and how grandiose gestures generally didn’t cut it when it came to make a difference. And if I just tweak the context a tiny bit, and cross the line into the land of metaphor, that point applies just as well to this problem that I’ve been having. I’ve convinced myself that I need to change the world, and that the book I write has got to knock my point right out of the park (Mixed Metaphor: shaken, not stirred). But going for a hole in one (that’s three metaphors in a single paragraph! Watch out!) means that I’m more likely to wind up in a sand trap (did I use that right? I don’t golf.), banging away in futility instead of steadily making progress. I think I know why my wife gets so frustrated with me: I’m intolerable when I’m right. I can just feel my inner know-it-all smirking at the glacial pace I’ve taken to finally make it here.

Of course, knowing is just the first step (but apparently, half the battle), so that still leaves me with the unenviable task of getting over myself and getting down with the clackety-clack. I am a master of procrastination, and I thrive on the battlefield of deadlines. Well, sometimes: I’m just as likely to sound a full retreat when it looks like I’m outmatched. But it’s the terror of the last minute which often inspires me to bypass all the reasons why I can’t, and shows me the secret path to victory.

Okay, I think I’ll have to do something drastic, or I’ll never get around to it. Starting today (I was going to say tomorrow, but that wouldn’t help with the procrastination), in addition to the blog, I’m going to write 1,000 words on this mythical and elusive novel that I intend to sell someday. Obviously, I’m not going to be posting on the website, but I will start each subsequent blog with an update as to where I am. The only reason I got this far was by forcing myself to write for an audience that I may one day possess, not the one I have today.

 

-Tex

Note: This was originally posted as a six-part series toward the end of December.

The Adventures of Tex and Fed in the Land of the Murdertrees, and their Escape from Murdertree Mountain

PART ONE:

Sunday Afternoon- Simply Walking To Mordor

I sat alone in the car, watching the sun begin to set around 3 o’clock, and wondered if Fed would return that night. He’d been gone for four hours already, and all I could imagine were the fates which may have befallen him along the 5.6 miles of snowed-in forest road until he could reach the nearest outpost of civilization. I took another sip out of the bottle in which I’d been melting snow, and glanced back the hundred yards toward the bathroom. I decided that if I was going to dare its usage, I would need to go now, as the light would be all but completely gone in another fifteen minutes. Jacket wrapped tightly about me, and scarf nestled snugly around my neck, I climbed out of the car and trudged along the tracks of our failed escape from Cooper Lake. How did we get into this mess? I mused, eyes darting along the treeline for signs of a lupine presence. It seemed like such a good idea on Friday…

Friday Night- An Unexpected Journey

Flor, David, and I had taken the ferry back across the Puget Sound to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law in Seattle to catch up before they took off on their holiday road trip. After a harrowing adventure in the stairwell of their building (which eerily foreshadowed the weekend to come), we decided to grab a bite to eat at the BRGR Bar and talk about the minutiae of our everyday lives, as families separated by time and space are wont to do. It was a short walk to the restaurant, a nice little hole-in-the-wall with amazing hamburgers and laid-back atmosphere. We were seated, placed our orders, and began chatting about our upcoming holiday plans and travels. The last time I had spoken to them, they had intended to leave the following day on their interstate adventure, but had since pushed it back a week. Instead, my brother Fed was heading off into the mountains for a weekend of camping in the breathtaking beauty of the snow-laden Northern Cascades.

A decade ago, I would have jumped in and attempted my own invitation, but I’ve since matured… and married. Adventuresome whims were no longer an option. I voiced my manly consent at his woodsmasculine spirit, and took another sip of my Cider. His betrothed, Inuita, began discussing Christmas arrangements when Fed looked at me and asked, “So, you want to go camping in the mountains with me?” I turned to my wife to ask her permission to abandon her to the care of my family for the weekend while I took off to the deep wilderness for two and a half days of roughing it in freezing temperatures. I anticipated at least some objection, but before my eyes had even locked with hers, she’d said, “You can go.”

“Are you sure?” I asked her in Spanish, “I don’t want to drag you all the way up here, and then just leave, while you’re stuck at home with my family.”

“It’s fine,” she said, “Go. Have fun.”

I was now a little nervous at how easily I’d managed to secure for myself a vacation within in a vacation, and what it might cost me when I returned. “You’re really okay?” I asked again.

“If I wanted to go do something fun, I wouldn’t ask your permission, I’d just go and do it.”

“Really? I mean…”

“Go! Inuita and I will just go and do women things. Like look at men with muscles.”

“Whatever,” I sighed, and took another sip of my Cider. I turned back to Fed. “I’m in.”

We began discussing how woefully unprepared I was to undertake a winter expedition, as I’d only brought clothing appropriate for Seattle weather, not epic slogs through snowbanks to nights spent camping upon mountains. Inuita and Fed had extra gear, however, and as we finished up our meal, we finalized our plans for Saturday, with Tex Batmart being outfitted for survival by his benefactors. It had been a decade and a half since the last time I’d spent an evening out of doors on purpose, and about half that time since Fed and I had hung out for more than just an afternoon. I had permission (and encouragement) from my lovely wife of whom I am most definitely unworthy, and I believe Inuita was at least slightly relieved to send a Red Shirt along on the Away Mission. Fed and I made plans to meet up the following morning under the Viaduct, wished one another Good Evening, and parted company, he and Inuita to their apartment to begin packing for the morning, and myself, my wife, and the Minkey Man returning to the Ferry Terminal, and then on to The Island, where we’d pick up some food for the trip, and I’d attempt to overcome my excitement and get a good night’s sleep. That last part never really came to be.

Saturday Morning- Mist and Shadow

My morning began just shy of 6 a.m., as I gathered up my waterproof backpack filled with camping-appropriate consumables (granola, bottled water, and beef jerky), and willed myself to consciousness. I failed at the latter, but still managed to be ready to leave the house at the same time as my ride, and boarded the 7:05 ferry without incident. I texted Fed, as we’d agreed upon the night before, and let him know that I was on my way, to which he replied that he was running a little behind, and to just go ahead and walk up to his place. I confirmed, then sat back in my seat and sipped my vending machine coffee to watch the lights of Seattle slowly begin to appear through the murky dusk of the miserable predawn morning. It was actually heartachingly beautiful, watching the city of my birth appear in the interstices between the mysticism of magick and the majesty of science, languidly unfurling itself from behind the blinds of fog, and casually coming into existence from within the dream from whence it slumbered.

I could barely contain my excitement as I disembarked the vessel, and began hiking up the inclines of the Emerald City. Here was the adventure for which I’d been longing for years. This was the reason I left work: to live life and write of my survival. Having burned out and run on autopilot for a half-dozen years, I could feel the old me spring suddenly to life. I had no plan, aside from following Fed up a mountain. I remembered the sheer joy of spontaneity, of forgetting to overthink everything, and for a moment, finally living. Upon arriving, I picked up my pack, promised Inuita that we would come back in one piece (well, two…), and walked toward Fed’s car, ready for anything. We loaded up our gear, and headed East, toward the Snoqualmie Pass, leaving behind the worries of banality and facing head-on the promises and possibilities of Tomorrow.

PART TWO: 

Saturday Morning- Into The Misty Mountains

Not too far out of Issaquah, we began our ascent into the mountains and forestal terrain, and were treated to the sights of snow-laden trees shrouded in silken mist. The Interstate was plowed, but there were patchy areas of slush within the lanes, and long shoulders of crystallized precipitation framing the roadway. Fed glanced over and, noting the concern on my face, said that he didn’t know why the hell I looked stressed out, he was the one who was driving in these conditions. I tried to reassure him that his driving was fine, and that the expression which I wore upon my face was merely that which I wore by default. He turned his attention back to the road, while I tried to appear slightly less terrified.

Were my life or freedom to depend upon apparent sincerity or joyous anticipation, I would soon be left without either. I’ve spent my entire adult life in the Mastery of Snark, and my tone now drips sarcasm no matter what the message. Countless times I’ve been forced into confrontation when uttering something contextually sensitive, and missing it by errant tonal intonations. It’s really hard to convince someone that you’re not mocking them, when the only tone of voice with which you are left is that of biting mockery. Combine that with a face of furrowed brow and permascowl, and everyone simply assumes that you’d rather nothing to do with them, and that you’d prefer that they would leave. At least now, as I get older, I am given the benefit of doubt in that people sometimes assume that they may, in fact, actually be on my lawn.

The freeway soon cleared as we descended, and it was then that Fed laid out his Master Plan: we would drive in to the Salmon La Sac Trailhead, and and hike the trail, setting up camp in the sublime witchery of the Pacific Northwest, and spending two nights in the wilderness that had long been missing during my stay in California. I hoped that I would appear to be excited, but I’m sure only trepidation was conveyed. I was a little nervous about a miles-long slog up a mountainside, as it had been years since I’d done any physical recreation regularly, but I was looking forward to spending some quality time with my best friend, brother by choice, the best man at my wedding. We stopped off for some gas and rocket fuel (an entirely too large can of Monster, purchased primarily for its potential as a resealable ashtray), and a few short minutes later, were back on our way.

Past Rosalyn, we drove, and then on through the town of Ronald (home of The Last Resort, a reportedly underwhelming dining experience). The roads were snowy here, but dry, and our Hybrid Chariot handled had no problem making it past the Sno-Park and onto the Forest Roads.

The driving became more difficult as we departed from paved roadways, and we were grateful to see that snowmobilers had paved grooves into the powdery snow that Fed’s car could more easily traverse. Deeper into the forest we drove, ascending and descending elevations more of an obstacle now, as we attempted the deepest trailhead in. But we were finally stopped by wrong turn and an inability to execute a three-point turn in virgin snow. Stalled sideways in the road, we soon were past by roaming bands of snowmobilers, who offered us assistance and a minimum of taunting. With the strength of three kind-hearted strangers (and the leaning mass of Tex Batmart), we got the Subaru turned around, and headed back toward the Salmon La Sac Campground, where we could park and hit one of three trails at the end of which we would pitch the tent and get ready for the falling night.

Saturday Afternoon- Lost In Mirkwood

Fed parked the car, and I set about to combine the contents of the backpack I’d brought with those in the larger hiking-framed pack that Fed had brought for me. After donning the cold weather gear contained within, I shoved, squeezed, and manhandled my foodstuffs, Moleskine journals, and Digital SLR into the empty spaces of the larger pack, and we set off to see which of the hikes seemed more realistic to attempt. We discounted the more advanced route, as neither of us believed that a man of my advanced eld could manage it, but settled on the intermediary trail as a more viable alternative. I could already feel the increased pressure on my legs and back, but decided that it was probably something that I would just have to deal with and get over. Fed popped on his snowshoes and up the trail we headed.

We walked around and up and down, following a barely visible path alongside moss-hung trees with snow-laden branches, and punctuated by boulders that had seemingly been frozen in their eruptions up from within the very earth, and been blanketed as well, as if to lull them back to sleep and peace. Up and around, a twisting trail through mountain forest glory did we travel. I needed more rest stops than I had earlier anticipated, but the fact is that I was out of shape, with shorter legs, and Fed was fit and healthy, wearing snowshoes. Eventually the trail opened up, and we realized that we had crossed a road. While I took a moment to catch my breath and have a smoke, Fed consulted his iPad, trying to discover if we’s somehow lost the trail, and had crossed onto another.

We decided to continue on, finding a trail just a short distance from the road. It crossed over a small creek, which we forded by judiciously stepping on a stone in the center of the flow. And up the other bank we continued until, from about twenty feet in front of me, I heard, “Son of a bitch. I don’t believe it.”

I scrambled up the remaining distance (more like old man shuffling), and then I saw it as well. We’d walked for couple of hours, trudging (well, I was trudging; Fed was gliding like Legolas o’er Caradhras) through the elements, only to arrive right back to where we’d parked the car. We consulted the trail map again, and couldn’t figure how we lost the trail, but decided that it was now too late to give it another go. Luckily for us, Fed had been prepared with contingency plan in place, should we be unable to attain this route. We would head to Cooper Lake, further back toward Ronald, but still nearly six miles into the wilderness. It didn’t appear that anyone had gone out there, so it looked like we have the whole place to ourselves. We loaded the backpacks into the Subaru, and then ourselves, and drove around the Cul-de-Salmon La Sac, on the way to Cooper Lake.

PART THREE:

 –

Saturday Afternoon- The Way Is Shut

We drove back toward Cooper Lake, and were able to pull all the way into the parking lot above the campsite. We negotiated the trail down, hanging onto trees and posts to maintain our balance. Fed made it okay, and I fell only once. Once at the bottom, we realized that we had found our spot. In the way of all wooded campsites, there were wonderfully spacious clearings amidst the stands of trees, with picnic tabled benches just to the side. Just beyond was a trail leading down to the lake, and another, leading deeper into the woods. On all sides, the trees stood in silent watch over the land, their boughs weighed low by massive loads of snow. A light breeze carried in more, dusting the already prodigious shag carpeting of snow in another fine and powdery layer. We set our things down by the bench, and decided to try the trail down to Cooper Lake.

The lake sat not quite frozen, still and silent in the muffled atmosphere which always accompanies a snowfall. We paused for a moment, allowing the scene to take us in, take us away. In that moment, the lake seemed to lose all scale, and the opposite bank seemed just a quick stroll away. Fed must have read my mind, because he looked back at me and said, “Yeah, I don’t know how frozen that lake is. I don’t think I’m going to try it,” and turned to walk back to our camp. “Come on,” he said, “we better get the tent up.” I lingered for just a moment longer, inching down to the (frozen) water’s edge. I felt as though I’d fallen into a snow globe, and was witnessing the moment just after the shaking had let up. I headed back up the path toward our campsite, looking back once more across the lake.

Saturday Evening- Treebeard’s Revenge

We began preparing our site by tamping down the snow in the roughly the shape of the base of our tent. Once we had a uniform surface upon which to lay our foundation, we unpacked the tent, and got to work assembling it. It had been awhile since my last outdoor adventure, so I wasn’t entirely stunned, but I have to say that what we put together was easily the most complicated yurt with which I’d been involved. We set out the base, and then the tent itself. There were stakes and parachutes, and hooks and latches, and an umbrella-like hood to rest upon the top. Within the first zippered door on either side was a vestibule to house our remaining gear, and behind zippered door number two, the sleeping chamber. When I’d gone camping before, there was just the one room, and one zippered door at the front of the tent. If you were lucky, you might have a window. This was not your average outdoors sleeping experience. This was a tank.

We laid out our bedrolls and sleeping bags, setting up for the night, that we might finish in time for dinner before the day succumbed to darkness just as evening set in shortly after four o’clock. We’d decided that we were going to spend the night, and head back the next day, as the conditions could easily worsen, and it might be nigh impossible to get back if we waited too long. I had just pulled out my supply of granola bars and jerky when Fed announced we’d be eating presently, and that he needed my bottled water. I’d been trying to conserve it throughout the day, having only drunk a .75 liters, and was concerned about running out, but I was assured we’d replenish my supply with melted snowpack, and brought it out to Fed.

His setup appeared better suited to the cooking of questionably legal chemicals than of food, but a chill had begun to set into my bones, and I was happy enough to have something hot to eat and drink. He boiled us each up a pouch of Mediterranean flavored Wild Salmon, and prepared some Coffee Flavored coffee for us to drink. The food and drink did their jobs, and I began to feel something other than the freezing cold for the first time in hours. It was a manly sort of moment, having tamed a small part of nature, and enjoying the spoils of a modern approach to an age old diversion. As we were finishing up our dinner, we noticed that the trees had begun to subtly encroach upon us, and that the beauty which we’d beheld in daylight had become something entirely more sinister.

I mentioned this, and Fed responded that there was a character in DOTA 2 called Rizzrack the Timbersaw, who was terrified of trees. He went on to tell me some of his best responses in the game, usually in reference to his mixed hatred and fear of anything arboreal. I laughed, but secretly believed that Fed was tempting fate. Little did either of us know how true that was.

And then the snow began to fall. Not the light, enjoyable drifting flakes that we’d seen for most of the day, but giant bombs launched down toward the ground, having broken free of their branches’ hold. Closer and closer they came. Suddenly the Timbersaw joke didn’t seem as ludicrous after all.

–

We finished up and washed out our utensils, making it to the tent just as the light caress of snow fully transmuted into freezing rain. Our trips to opposite ends of the clearing to mark out respective territories were like a tightrope walk on cannon range. Back inside the tent, I attempted to wring out some of my garments that had been dampened in our travels, while Fed set up a marathon of Friends on his iPad for us to enjoy. The light of day had now completely failed, and the Battle For Fed’s Tent had just begun.

PART FOUR:

Saturday Night- March of the Murdertrees

“The tent will hold,” Fed tried to reassure me, “It’s a Hilleberg.”

“Yeah, but you know there’s a tree practically on top of us, right?”

“The only way anything might kill us, is if a tree actually falls down on us. And even then, the tent will probably survive.”

“Still…”

He turned his attention back to the current episode of Friends playing on his iPad. A loud crash from behind us elicited from Fed a “Safe. Safe. Safe. They’ll never get me in here.”

I had other things to worry about. My socks were now completely soaked, and the condensation in my vestibule was moistening nearly everything else. I’d packed another pair, but couldn’t find them anywhere. I grabbed the head mounted light Fed had so thoughtfully provided me, and once again scoured the outer chamber in search of my one pair of dry socks. I didn’t find the socks, but I did discover my expensive camera was now covered in a sheen of dampness. I quickly grabbed it, and my beef jerky, which, at this rate, was soon to become merely… beef.

“What are you looking for?”

“A dry pair of socks. I could have sworn I had them here somewhere…”

I lifted up the edges of my bedroll, and Fed did the same with his, but still no luck. “Nothing?” he asked, still watching his show.

“No.” I said. I ducked my head back out into the vestibule just in time to hear the boom of a few dozen pounds of snow land less than a foot from my head, and see the frame of the tent dip sharply with the impact, bouncing back just as quickly.

“See?” he said, reassuringly (although to whom, I’m still unclear), “This is a Hilleberg. We’ll be fine.” As if also irritated by his smug demeanor, a sharp crack sounded just above his head. “I am completely sane!”

I laid back in my sleeping bag and munched some jerky before it could fully rehydrate, trying to enjoy “The One with Monica and Chandler’s Wedding.” I didn’t have a pillow, but the sleeping bag had a hood, and a bunched up shirt between it and the bedroll was serviceable enough. For whole minutes at a time we managed to bottle our fear of an arboreal avalanche, and watch some classic Must See TV. Aside from the Murdertrees, today had still been an amazing day, and even though we weren’t waxing philosophical into the wee hours like we’d done when we became friends, it was enough to just hang out with Fed, and share a quiet moment of trust and friendship.

He was the one to convince me to move to California. He was the one to give me the name Tex Batmart. He was the Best Man at my wedding and is the Godfather of my child. He was there at the initial creation of The Vaults of Uncle Walt. In a time where my circle of friends was bound together not by affection towards one another, but rather a common disdain of others, we managed to develop a friendship that has lasted half my life. And though we’ve often lived whole states apart, I still consider him like a brother. Sure, we don’t talk as much anymore, and our emails and texts are few and far between, but when we do get together, we still fall back into a rhythm, and it’s almost like we’re still the same guys who used to stay up all night recording on a 4-Track, just with blown-out knees and Old Man Backs. If we survived the night, I might even tell him all of that.

I went out to have a smoke, and was startled to discover just how dark it was. I could barely make out the nearest trees, and was almost caught beneath another onslaught, managing to shuffle to the side after having felt the telltale shower of snow, and lurching to my left. I extinguished my cigarette, and went back inside the tent. My dry socks were still nowhere to be seen, and I was getting tired. I took off the damp pair which I was wearing and put them in the bag with me, hoping to dry them out with body heat while I slept that night. I turned my back on Friends, and listened to the sound of the freezing rain drumming upon the tent.

I was almost asleep when the bombardments began anew. As the rain continued, the massive clumps of snow hanging precariously above us continued to loosen, aided by gravity and running water. A tree not ten feet from us began to unload, and, unlike the others, did not drop its munitions directly down, but began a run near its trunk, and then strafing directly for the tent.

“Trees. Why did it have to be trees?”

I closed my eyes and fell asleep. A couple more times that night I was awoken by the sound of pounding snowboulders thrown mercilessly by nearing murdertrees, but overall I slept fairly well.

Sunday Morning-  Not quite Lembas

The dawn light began to brighten the tent around me, and one of the first things I noticed was how damp the inner chamber of the tent had become. It was then that I realized that we had survived the night. Slowly Fed and I transitioned into something akin to consciousness, and soon plans were made for the breaking of our fasts, and the surveying of our encampment. For breakfast we had oatmeal substitute and more Coffee Flavored coffee. I popped outside for a morning cigarette, and saw how the walls of fallen snow that had surrounded us while we slept. Much more, and we would have been trapped, but the Hilleberg held.

We packed away our gear and disassembled the tent, eager to be free of Cooper Lake and its homicidal vegetation. The rain and body heat had melted the snowpack beneath us, and as we packed away the tent, we carried a significant amount of water with it. We didn’t have to pack as well this time, as we were only concerned about getting everything back to the car, and getting back to civilization. The trip back up to the car was bit more precarious, as the ascent was almost entirely slush. But we’d had enough of The Land of the Murdertrees. We loaded everything into the car and said goodbye to the woods which would have claimed us.

It may have been a tad premature…

PART FIVE:

Sunday Morning- You Shall Not Pass

The snow about the car wasn’t much higher than it had been the afternoon before, but the rain had deprived it of its crunchy, tire propelling properties, and replaced them with something altogether slushier. Fed tried to pull the car forward, but the snow began accumulating underneath the chassis, causing the wheels to spin wildly, but getting us nowhere. Reverse also failed, for much the same reason. I looked around the treeline surrounding us, imagining the echoes of laughter as the murdertrees realized their final revenge. Fed shut off the car, stepped back outside, and walked around to open the trunk. He pulled out the folding shovel, and handed it to me. “Time to dig,” he said.

We took turns scraping out slush from beneath the poor Subaru, trying to make a track on which the vehicle could run. Every so often, Fed would jump back inside and give it a go, hoping that we’d cleared enough to escape. We moved our attack from under the car to a space diagonally behind, clearing a spot for the car to back into. My strength was soon failing, as years of neglect and yesterday’s exercise conspired against me. But we got a zone cleared, and the time now had come for all or for nothing. I stood a few yards away as a measure of protection, in case Fed lost control, and I needed to jump out of the way. It took a few tries, but he righted the car, and though stopped once again, it was pointed the right way.

Fed grabbed his snowshoes and walked down the road, compacting a track that he might hope to navigate. I spent my time digging out under the car, near the wheels for a start, and then clearing as much as I could underneath. I managed the driver’s side as best as I could, but the passenger side soon grew beyond me. When I’d done all I could, I sat down down inside, thawing a drink of snow in my mouth. I saw Fed appear a little while later, still looking healthy, but touched by exhaustion. He cleared out a little more snow from beneath, and decided to give our escape one more shot. For the best chance of success, I would be staying outside, as we hoped lightening the load would make for easier going. From inside the car, he relayed to me, “If I can get some momentum, I’m just going to keep going. You’ll just have to catch up a bit further down.” I nodded and trudged to a safe rooting distance, just in case he began spinning toward me.

The tracks in the snow seemed to have been the answer, and he got the car moving along the path he’d stamped out. I watched my salvation pull slowly away from me before moving forward and giving pursuit. It looks like he’s got it, I thought to myself as I watched Fed and the Subaru gradually increase the distance between us. I did what I could to pick up my pace, as I couldn’t be sure when he might need to stop, and couldn’t chance having to walk back to the town. I crashed through the snow, doing my best to keep jogging, but could only sustain that pace for a minute. As my lungs began staging a walk-out protest, I saw the car slow and then stop in the road still a third of the way from the larger Forest Road. My breaths came in ragged, and my legs were aflame, but I increased my pace to catch up to my friend.

“It’s not going any further,” Fed told me as I arrived at the car, gasping for breath. “I’m going to gear up and walk into town to get us a tow truck.”

“You up for that?” I asked, hoping that he wouldn’t hear the subtext that if I went, one of us might die.

“Yeah, I just need to warm up for awhile before heading out. How much battery do you have left on your phone?”

“It’s down to about fifty percent,” I said, glancing down at his iPhone, uncharged, and now useless. “I forgot to disable the alarm last night, so it was going for a couple of hours before I could shut it off.”

“That should be fine.” He took my phone from me. “I don’t use Android, so you better show me how to make a call on it.”

I gave him a brief tutorial while he was warming up, and he explained after how to start up the car, should the temperature drop. “Try not to run it too much, obviously. But if it’s a choice between that or freezing to death, go ahead and crank the heat.” He looked at me, as if calculating my ability to survive on my own for unknown quantity of time. “You going to be okay?”

“I’ll be fine,” I explained, holding up my (signed) Kindle, “I’ve got-“

“Hey, is it supposed to look like that?”

“Like what?” I turned the Kindle to face me, and saw that the bottom third of the screen was stuck showing the offer that had been there the day before, while the top displayed the last book that I’d been reading. I breathed out a small tirade of dissatisfaction, and fiddled futilely with the now broken device. I tossed it back into my backpack, and in it place retrieved an iPod Classic. “Well,” I said, “at least I’ve got this.”

Too soon he was ready, and it was time to depart. We wished one another luck, and he was on his way. I sat back into my seat, enjoying the warmth of the leftover tropic explosion that had been preparing my brother for who knew how long of a trek through the slow. I selected some Metal, and popped in the earbuds, figuring he’d only be gone until 4, maybe 5. A couple of hours each way (and then, only if he failed to summon out a tow truck), and one way or another, I’d see him again. I scooped some virgin snow into my water bottle, and put it between layers, hoping it would melt. Without really noticing, I began blinking much slower, and then resting my eyes, and then… I woke with a start in now quite chilly car, and glanced at the time to see how much I’d lost.

Sunday Afternoon- Simply Walking To Mordor

I sat alone in the car, watching the sun begin to set around 3 o’clock, and wondered if Dave would return that night. He’d been gone for four hours already, and all I could imagine were the fates which may have befallen him along the 5.6 miles of snowed-in forest road until he could reach the nearest outpost of civilization. I took another sip out of the bottle in which I’d been melting snow, and glanced back the hundred yards toward the bathroom. I decided that if I was going to dare its usage, I would need to go now, as the light would be all but completely gone in another fifteen minutes. Jacket wrapped tightly about me, and scarf nestled snugly around my neck, I climbed out of the car and trudged along the tracks of our failed escape from Cooper Lake. How did we get into this mess? I mused, eyes darting along the treeline for signs of a lupine presence. It seemed like such a good idea on Friday…

PART SIX:

Sunday Afternoon- Fool Of A Took

I picked up my pace as my imagination began populating the darkening shadows with the forest with the slinking movements of wolves out for an easy meal. My legs burned from the continuous pumping, but I breathed a sigh of relief upon reaching the restroom and locking myself within. The light was fading, but there was still enough for me to take care of business. I was a bit disappointed to have been unable to use the woods for this particular endeavor, but preferred disappointment to death at the jaws of wolves. I finished up, and after reassembling my outer protections, left the restroom five minutes later. The world had taken on that eerie glow that oft transpires when the soft and hazy fading light reflects back up and off the fallen snow, and the car looked twice as far away as it had before. I prayed I’d make it back before the wolves could get me, and kept running calculations of the chances of my survival should the pack break cover from behind the dusk and launch themselves toward me. I didn’t feel even remotely safe until I’d made it back inside the car, with doors now locked and heat on full.

Sunday Evening- Shadow and Flame

I finished drinking the water I’d melted, and filled the bottle up once more, ready to trade my body heat for something else to drink. I’d polished off the granola bars, and made a sizable dent in my supply of jerky, and was counting down the list inside my head of all the things that could have befallen Fed. 6:45, and I’d seen no sign of him for over eight hours. I had figured that he’d either have found a tow truck, or failing that, come back here to let me know he wasn’t dead. I stepped out of the Subaru and lit up another cigarette, turning my gaze briefly toward the treeline, and again toward the the direction of the Forest Road on which I hoped that Fed was returning. The night seemed to close around me, and I sucked deep on my smoke, trying to finish and get back to safety. And then I saw it. A light, still some distance away. I ground out the Marlboro in a nearby bank of snow, tossed it in my Monster ashcan, and hopped back in the car to wait.

Twenty Minutes Later…

The headlights finally turned around the bend, and began heading down toward me. I opened the door again, lighting one more smoke, and waiting to see what new development had befallen me. Another five minutes, and a dull red tow truck propelled upon a caterpillar track came to a stop just yards from the front of the car, and Fed popped out from the shadows and rushed past me into the car. The tow truck driver then stepped in between the two vehicles and began hooking the tow line up to the Subaru. I grunted a welcome, and popped back inside the car.

“It’s gonna be really hot in here for awhile.” Fed turned to me, crystals of ice beginning to melt in his beard.

“That’s fine, it’s fairly chilly out there. So what happened?”

“Give me just a few minutes to warm up, and I’ll tell you everything.”

The driver got us connected, and we began our inching crawl out of the wilderness. Fed was driving, focused on trying to keep the car in line with the tow truck, but finally looked over and said, “I am so glad to be somewhere warm.”

“So what happened?”

Sunday Morning- There And Back Again: Fed’s Tale

He told me that he’d walked for the better part of two hours before seeing another soul. Down along the Forest Road, and just across the bridge. Then another pack of roving snowmobilers had come upon him, and offered him a lift back into town. He’d burned through the battery on his iPad, and was happy enough to shorten the journey. A glance at my phone had told him he was still in a dead zone for service, so he jumped up onto the back of a snowmobile and was carried into the town of Ronald, and dropped off just outside of The Last Resort.

The power was out, there and at the convenience store next to it, and my phone was still unable to find a single bar of service. Fed tried over at the snowmobilers’ clubhouse, where at least it was warm, and waited for the power to come on.

The car began fishtailing in the wake of the tow truck, slipping off the tracks and into the snow on either side. The driver hopped out and asked Fed to pop it back in neutral. Fed made the adjustment, and we began moving forward once again. A thick fog of exhaust spewed out from the tow truck as we continued on our way.

The power finally came back on, and the ‘bilers were kind enough to loan Fed the use of their phone. He called up a local towing service and waited for them to come and pick him up. He tried my cell again, and saw just how much coverage I was getting for my monthly mobile payment. The tow truck soon arrived, and he hopped in and directed the driver back toward my location. They reached the turnoff where the pavement ended and began the Forest Road. The driver took a look ahead and called an audible. He turned around and drove them all the way to his shop back in Cle Elum. They were going to need a bigger boat.

The driver loaded a flatbed truck up with the caterpillar tow truck, and they began their return journey. The caterpillar ran about five miles per hour, and it didn’t have a cab; the entire hour and a half journey was spent riding in the freezing cold and breathing in the diesel fumes. No wonder he’d been so eager to get back inside a warm vehicle, enclosed, and safe from the elements.

The driver tried a couple times to let us loose, and we barely cleared any distance before stalling out again, and waiting for him to catch up. But it looked like the path was getting easier to manage, and on the third attempt, we pulled away, and kept moving forward until we reached pavement once more. It took about a half an hour for the driver to cover the distance and catch up to us. We took the chains off of the tires and remembered, with fifteen seconds left to play, that the Seahawks game might still be on. Fed found the game, and we capped the day’s adventure with the sweet relief of hearing that our boys in blue and green just clinched a spot in the post-season with a 35-6 win over the Cardinals. Fed looked over at me and said, “All I want to know is, how did they score 6?”

And so the Adventures of Tex and Fed in the Land of the Murdertrees (and their Escape from Murdertree Mountain) have come to their end. They drove safely back to Seattle, and reveled in the knowledge that not only did they survive the weekend, but their football team survived the regular season.

-Tex

I’ve got a ton of stuff to do today. but I didn’t want to deprive you of your daily Batmart fix, so at noon today, I’ll be posting the collected Murdertree Saga as a single story. And I’ll be back tomorrow with fresh content before taking Sunday off to watch the Super Bowl. Depending on how the game turns out, I may write up something for Sunday Evening.

Have a great Friday!

 

-Tex

So, as I point out from time to time, I am an atheist. No, I don’t want to kill your babies, or declare a war on Christmas, or let people marry animals. I simply do not believe that there is an anthropomorphic being of limitless power that is concerned about whether or not we masturbate. I wrote a piece not too long ago about the dangers of fanaticism, and I have no intention to bring up that point again, for fear of being labeled a “militant atheist” and having a war declared on me. I would, however, like to address the misconception that one needs a preferred holy book in order that he might live a good and decent life. I believe that it is possible to be a good and honest person without worrying about supernatural ramifications if one fails. Actually, to me, it seems similar to getting off of drugs, and the reason that so many people relapse when they get out of treatment. They are told that what they are doing is wrong, and that if they slip up again, they are failures. Addiction has to do with biochemistry, and if you’ve been using long enough, you’re not going to change that in just a couple weeks just because you really want to. I’m sure there are people who have given everything up cold turkey, and never looked back, but the reality is that addicts will face constant temptations to use again, and more often than not, they will give in, at least once. And here is where I’ll tie it back into ethics and morality:

What the addict does after he has used again is more important than anything else he might have done to face down his addiction. Society has told him that if he uses even once more, he is just a junkie fuck-up, and there isn’t any point in wasting any more time or money on him. But it’s hard to give up something which has completely rewired your brain, scrambling up the order of your motivations to put “Substance A” at the very top. What you have to keep in mind is that you probably will fail. That’s not an excuse to throw your arms up in the air, and just do a line of blow, as giving up an addiction requires a desire to change (that’s why I don’t put much stock in interventions, or treatment programs that are not entered into completely voluntarily: if you don’t want to quit, you won’t). When you slip up, just realize that you are a human being, and remind yourself of all the reasons why you gave up “Substance A.” You don’t need to submit to a higher power, who will be disappointed when you cannot live up to a standard of perfection, and the last thing that you need is to beat yourself up every waking moment because you are destined to be imperfect as long as you are living. Get the notion of perfection out of your head entirely.

Perfection doesn’t exist in nature. It is a concept, an ideal, an unattainable standard to drive ourselves forward. We are bags of ambulatory meat that have been lucky (…) enough to develop sentience. We are not the destination to which evolution has been driving, merely a rest stop along the way. As long we imagine ourselves to be a mere shadow of our potential, we will never fully realize what we are capable of.

Tex, I can hear you asking, what does this have to do with ethics? I also thought you said you weren’t going to be indicting religion today.

Okay, fair enough. I’ve gotten a little bit off track and gone down the rabbit hole. Sorry.

I don’t need a set of rules dating back thousands of years to know that I probably shouldn’t kill or steal. I’m not exactly the biggest, or the strongest, and a society based upon murderous larceny would most likely not be the one for me. It’s pretty simple, even from the most selfish point of view: Do you want people to do good things or bad things to you? Don’t do things to people that they may not like, as you probably wouldn’t like it if they spent their time doing those things to you. Do unto others, and so forth… And just because you have been slighted, don’t go out and punish the world. That isn’t going to go back and erase what was done to you; it will only make other people suffer. We are a reactionary people, seeking to even the scales of amount of pain endured. It is most obvious in toddlers, but we never truly grow out of it, we just become more adept at hiding it behind pretense.

There is a reason that we have a rule of law, especially when it comes to capital offenses: the loved ones of the victim are never seeking justice. There can be no justice: the victim is dead, and we haven’t got a Lazarus Pit. What the survivors want is vengeance. They hurt so badly that they feel a physical need to give that pain to someone, anyone else. They want the accused to suffer and to die. The criminal hurt not only his victim, but everyone who knew and loved the deceased. There is no punishment we can mete out that will undo this act of unspeakable violence. And in the drive to make someone pay, things like “evidence” are often overlooked.

So what’s the point? Why bother? If there are people like that in the world, what use is there in being good? There will always be those among us who seek to do us harm, but you don’t have to be one of them. There are so many problems in the world, what can I possibly do? Go forth with the knowledge that you will try to make the world a better place. You don’t have to stamp out war or disease, or even give every single homeless person somewhere warm to sleep; just be nicer to the people that you know and come to meet. The little things never seem like much, but they make all the difference. Grandiose gestures are great against the Hitlers of the world, but do nothing against the banality of evil (and are often easily thwarted by it). If you can’t spare a dollar to the man camped out on the corner, just tell him so, don’t feel like you have to ignore him. Try talking to him, viewing him as an actual person whose life just zigged when it should have zagged.

We all make terrible choices on a daily basis, as anyone who’s ever eaten at McDonald’s can easily attest. Usually our errors don’t add up to much, but it really doesn’t take that much to knock you off the tracks. No one grows up thinking that they’d like to shoot up heroin and live in a cardboard box. No one wants to suffer from a mental illness that most people will attribute to some sort of divine retribution. We are all just doing the very best that we can hope to do. Instead of trying to bring everyone down to wallow in our pain, let’s try and make sure that no one else has to suffer it like we did.

That, I think, is the hardest lesson that I’ve learned from my two decades living with Bi-Polar. Unless you’ve truly felt the irresistible tug of the manic depressive pendulum, it’s really hard to understand. Most people feel sad, on occasion, or have been really, really excited about something. But until you’ve lain in bed for three days because you just couldn’t find a reason to get up, it’s hard to empathize. And it is completely invisible. Most people can just power through whatever’s got them down, and they love to tell you how to do it. For so long, I wanted to whole world to feel the pain like I did, just so they could understand. Not a lifetime, just a day. Let everybody suffer just a bit so that they might leave me in peace. But who would that truly help? All I wanted to do was to share the pain so that I wouldn’t hurt alone. But again, that’s not justice- it’s vengeance.

We need to rise above our childish need to lash out at the world, and act together to make it someplace that we’d like to live. It is my belief that this is the only life we’ve got, and maybe we should try to make the most of it. Let’s make a world where everyone has got a place to live, and enough to eat, and nourishment for the mind as well. Let’s make a world our children and grandchildren can be ecstatic to inherit. Let’s get to know each other so that we might not be afraid. Let’s hold hands and face the darkness, and chant in unison, “No more!” We are capable of amazing feats of genius, and yet we still band together in a tribal mentality predating agriculture. Our differences are not so great, when you strip away the dogma. Most of us just want to live a quiet life and not be hurt today.

So which future will you choose? One where we can come together as a species, spreading slowly outward through the galaxy, finding more wonders and beauty than we ever had dreamed possible, or one where we continue fighting over who gets to be one to drag us toward extinction?

I don’t have all the answers, despite what I tell my wife and son. But maybe if enough of us can come together, we can figure it out together.

-Tex

Also, you may have noticed that I included references to the bible, and biblical mythology. I am not in favor of the banning of that book, just a reclassification, as mythologies have been wonderful tools to sugar coat whatever message one is trying to impart. And there is incredible imagery within the pages of the bible. My point is that mythology is just that. Most religious people are polyatheists: there are countless gods in which they do not believe. I just disbelieve one more.

I may be the only one, but I kind of miss MySpace. I mean, not enough to go back to that ghost town and wander down the streets, alone, in the dark, but in a warm and fuzzy, sit back in an easy chair and next to a crackling fire sort of nostalgic way. True confession: I’ve been a horrible friend to Tom. That poor guy. When was the mass exodus to Facebook? It’s like all his friends just sort of divorced him and hooked up with that douchenozzle, Zuckerberg, just because he had tighter apps. And now he’s like that dude whose wife took everything in the divorce because she found out that she liked money more* (*Story not typical. Actual results may vary), just sitting in a run-down hovel, hoping that maybe the kids might like to see him this week, but it’s okay, he understands… by the way, he’s going to see Justin Timberlake this weekend… No? Okay, that’s cool, I guess. I’m probably just romanticizing it, but it felt to me as if MySpace was actually built as a place to hang out with your friends, whereas Facebook is that trendy club where the music is too loud, and that is just to distract you from the fact that you are what is being sold. I check back in on my accounts from time to time, to see just how much that it has changed, and it reminds me of old people trying to be cool.

Wow, I just logged in, and decided that I never want to go back there again. I was going to bring up the blog I had over there, and how much I loved doing it (as infrequently as I did), and how the fact that Facebook isn’t really ideal for blogging is probably what inspired me to buy my own website, but seeing just what MySpace has become… It took me about ten minutes to track down any hint that I might have ever posted anything, finally uncovering the link beneath a mountain of thinly veiled contempt regarding “MySpace Classic.” The blogs are no longer a feature of the MySpace experience, but, to the credit of the new overlords, all the blogs were available for download. They could have just wiped all memories of the old paradigm away to make room for the jumbled mess that now exists where my home page used to be, but for whatever reason, my rambling musings from eight years ago are safe once more. I was going to keep this light, and mock the entire Social Media Experience, maybe throwing a link to Tex Batmart of 2007, but I am suddenly overcome with grief at the loss of my vestigial tale.

Spending time on MySpace was like being a social drinker, it was something to do with friends, but nothing to get all worked up over. Facebook is like shooting heroin. Or checking the fridge after five minutes because there might be something new there. I like to stay in contact with people whom I might not otherwise be able, but the majority of my time on the site (or usually the app), is spent scrolling through an endless parade of content that probably doesn’t interest me. And Twitter has gotten so bad that I haven’t checked in on my app in over a month. Yes, I like all of the people I am following. No, I don’t want to see 500 tweets every half an hour (except from John Scalzi: that dude is money). But it’s all just another symptom of our growing distance from one another. I rarely call anyone anymore, and why should I? It’s so much easier to just shoot them a text, and not get locked into a conversation where I have to pretend to give a crap about their cat for twenty minutes. And in restaurants, on dates, everybody has a smartphone, and no one makes eye contact. I’m not saying it’s all bad; as someone with social anxiety, the thought of picking up the phone and calling someone I don’t know is practically paralyzing. I don’t know how I ever found the courage to call girls up in high school (when I was also attending- it’s not a hobby that I’ve kept), risking the wrath of their parents, or the silence that followed our exhaustion of all the things we had in common that I’d hoped would lead to something involving boobs, but rarely did.

The world is changing and reality seems out of context. It’s hard to connect with someone when dry wit can be so easily misconstrued. Does this mean that I will cancel my Facebook account, my cellular coverage, and disconnect from the interwebs? Probably not. I like to imagine that people want to hear what I have to say (probably just an affectation I’ve picked up on my road to trying to be an author), and occasionally, I like to be introduced to new things by those with whom I’ve chosen to associate. The sum of human knowledge is contained somewhere in the World Wide Web (my lawn is showing), and yet we use that infinite capacity for growth and societal enrichment to trade sarcastic barbs, and watch other people getting squelchy. Truly, we are the pinnacle of evolution, and it is right that we maintain dominion over the lesser species.

In addition to my disillusionment at the state of my old page, I found another one that I had at the time. It was a recording project that Fed and I had kind of started, and one that I thought might lead to at least a E.P. that I could sell. But then I became a dad, and Fed moved away, and the dream of Fealous Jage sort of fell away. I hadn’t actually heard this song in couple years, as I rarely use my iPod anymore, and it was kind of fun to give it another listen. I’m including the link so you guys can go and check it out.

Without any further ado, ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Snowdrift”, by Fealous Jage. Enjoy!

-Tex

I think that I may have underestimated the value of a having a job so infuriating that I would spend my days in a near-uncontrollable rage, cursing the stupidity of those around me, and longing only for the sweet embrace of my bed at the end of a day. For all of the nonsense which I endured, I managed to focus the natural processes of my Bi-Polar Bears away from me, instead of allowing them to consume me like I’d encouraged since the arrival of my illness. This time away from other people has, in many ways, been exactly what I’ve needed, but I’ve begun to see that it has not been everything that I had dreamed that it might be. Too much time alone with my thoughts has reminded me of all I chose to left behind, back when I had the courage and the will to do so. Getting back into writing as therapy, which has always been where I have found and tapped the magic, has forced me to unlock those certain doors which I had bolted shut, and face the seething monsters that lurk within. It was easy to remember that I once wrote every day, and that I always had a hotline to my muse, but what I seemed all too eager to forget was just how much I suffered for the glory of a single story. It stared me in the eyes and told me it’s name, but I never gave much thought to reality that when I was happy, I never seemed to feel the need to write. And despite my occasional grumblings, and indeed, the somber tone so far of this very piece, I am actually quite happy in very many ways.

If I was making money with this blog, I would have fulfilled almost all of my lifelong dreams, and allowed myself to feel, for just a fleeting time, much as a scent caught briefly in the wind, that everything would be okay, and that it wasn’t all for nothing. Everything I’ve ever done has led me to the next, like a treasure hunt with hidden map, that I’ve been following in good faith. In the moment when I’ve just made whatever mind-boggling decision that has caused both myself and all who name me friend to take a step back and wonder if Tex Batmart has finally bitten off more than he can chew, I try to carry on, hoping that my growing record of paid-off gut decisions will keep true. And looking back, it has been those painful moments of uncertainty, right before the next big thing to come along, which have been the hardest part of being me that I have been obligated (by myself, for sure) to endure. And then I will take my steps into a bright and jarring new reality, and allow myself a smug, self-congratulatory moment before putting all the doubt behind me and learning something new about myself. I’ll then meet people who my future self would absolutely have to know, or learn a skill I wouldn’t have picked up anywhere else, and then the crazy impulse which had driven me in to yet another corner would begin to look as unfailing as it always tended to in hindsight. Within a few months of arriving at my final (at least for a little while) destination, I would begin to loose my grip on all the nagging hours spent in twilight questioning if this would be the time when I finally failed.

Of course, history is written by the victors, and I’ve created a narrative within my head which compliments my acts of sheer insanity by lighting them in hues of prophecy. Every little victory is just reinforcement of the stupid gambles I gladly take when faced with no-win situations. If I were to fail, the story might look very different from the one that, even now, is being whispered to me (1) not literally, 2) obviously by Morgan Freeman) as I succumb to this next round of doubt. The benefit to the all-or-nothing nature of my bets against the universe is that, were I to fail, I probably wouldn’t have to hear the cracking failure of my personal Fate abandoning me. One of these days it will all blow up in my face, and I will have nowhere left to turn, but even now, as I face my own accuser, and find him to be me, I have bled the poison just enough to get me through another day. I’ve always said that I am the worst at planning, because once I’ve put my goals on paper, I feel that they are done, and then I never get back around to actually doing them. It’s nice to know the same principle applies just as well to the other side of it: If I can draw out psychic venom from my soul and wrap in up in fancy words, maybe the harm I seek out for myself will be equally negated. I tip my hat you, Lord Master of Apathy!

That still leaves me wondering what the future has in store for me, and every time I’ve tried to force the issue, and skip ahead a page or two, I swear that the whole process comes grinding to halt, if only to remind me that even though I’ve got the concept, I need the muscle memory. And now I’ve made the connection between my entire life, and encapsulated it in my son’s one mar war with penmanship. Little truths line my jacket pockets until they’re overflowing, and words of wisdom tumble out, spiraling down like tiny tattered dreams to be swept up along with all the other spoiled debris when they hit the floor.

I know this post’s been kinda heavy, so I want to end it with a joke. It’s one of my all time favorites, and it kind of sums of the story of my life to date:

Three men walk into a bar. The fourth man ducks.

-Tex

If it were up to me, I would seek out some dark cave with wireless internet, and spend my days writing about life in the wilderness and learning to survive. I could probably convince my son that it was a good idea, but my wife would never be on board. There’s a certain level of domesticity that she has come to expect: not necessarily the decadent distractions of the United States, but at the very least, indoor plumbing and electricity. For Flor, the excitement of a more outdoorsy type of life would probably be dampened by the constant fear of hypothermia, mountain lions, and various forms of foodborne illness. And the first time that she accidentally grabbed the Poison Ivy after making due with her restroom with a scenic view, I would be treated to an inability to walk correctly for several months or more. I’m not saying I would be the one to pass her substandard tissue alternatives, but I am fairly certain that I would be held accountable. Pinche Mateo y sus ideas tan tontas! Este guey! Que hago con El? No mountaintop or depth of cave would remain free from the ringing of her curses. And in the winter (or late autumn, depending), the echoes of her fury could lay low sheets of snow and send them down upon us. Of course, that would somehow be my fault as well…

And then, trapped behind a wall of snow, my son would begin to feel that his life was incomplete without a television to press his face right up against. He would start running around our cave, literally bouncing off the walls, complaining that he didn’t want to drink the moss-infused premium mineral drippings, and why couldn’t he have soda? He would demand that I stop writing on my laptop, and put on some sort of animated feature, before running up and jumping headlong into our makeshift bed of leaves and gravel. No matter where we were, he would still find a way to make it so that my wife and I couldn’t sleep that comfortably.

“But Dad!” he’d start in with a shrill accusation, “All the other woodland creatures’ parents let them jump up and down in their beds!”

“David,” I would patiently explain, “there are just a couple flaws in your logic. Number one: woodland creatures don’t really have beds like us. Number two: You’re not a woodland creature, despite how you have been behaving! Number three: I got How To Train Your Dragon ready. Why don’t you just settle down and come and watch the movie?”

“I don’t want to!“

“Dude, you can either sit and watch the movie, or help your mother collect more dung and firewood.”

“What’s dung?”

“Animal poop.”

“Ewww… nasty!”

At that point my wife would turn to glare at me, and demand to know why, exactly, that I seemed to believe that she would go around in search of combustible excrement, when I had just as many working arms and legs, and wasn’t already spending almost my entire day foraging and hunting, just so I could come home and prepare what I had managed to procure, only to see the look of disappointment in my wife’s eyes at another evening of woodland surprise (crippled squirrel and berries. Surprise!) cooked to perfection over a flavorfully smoky firepit filled with flaming scat. My wife, having never relied upon subtlety during the entirety of our relationship, would possibly have a point. Sure, I would have had money trickling in from my epic 10 part series, “Let’s All Go To The Mountains, Huh?”, but my wife would still be providing the majority of the tangible effort. It wouldn’t be so difficult, I might then realize, to give her a hand, from time to time, with some of the more taxing elements of roughing it. At the very least, I would come to understand, I could go in search in of some of the more overlooked amenities, like something we could fashion into pillows, and maybe even dig a refuse pit somewhere closer to the cave. Only the best for the light of my life, after all. Once the wall of snow had melted.

Eventually Spring would come, and find that we had been digging our way out of the avalanche all Winter, mainly as a way to avoid having to spend time with one another. It will have turned out that all of David’s pent-up energy was exactly what we needed, as a couple seasons spent out of doors, sleeping on the earth would nearly cripple a lady as sensitive as myself, and even hobble someone with the brute strength of my wife. But David, fueled by Snickers bars and my secret stash of Mountain Dew, would have clawed his way through the impassible glacier after overhearing someone musing that Amazon should have delivered that Xbox 360 by now. There exists no obstacle so great that a child steeped in sugar and caffeine cannot overcome it in search of something to allow him to do nothing. Whereas he could have spent all Winter sitting in the cave and napping, which seemed a pleasant enough way to pass the time, he’d been determined to perform feats of superhuman strength, just so he could come back and vegetate before the glow of LEGO Batman 3. Of course, even if there had been a video game console just outside, there would have been no television to which he could have hooked it up. It is doubtful, however, that we would be inclined to share that with him.

Having escaped our prison of forced familial quality time, my wife would kindly inform me, most likely with a series of punches to my abdomen, that it was time to think about returning to a world free of pine cone pillows and worm and beetle soup. She would stalk back down the mountain, a figure of both power and grace, and I would follow, as I always have, and always hope to do. About an hour later, she would send me back up to go get David, who would still be looking for the Xbox that we’d told him would be there.

-Tex